Decisive Discernment

Series on Luke

IV The Imperatives of the Kingdom

B Instruction in Rejection

6 Signs of the Times

Text: 12:54-59

Introduction

Whenever we come to the Lord’s table we keep an ordinance which Jesus Christ ordered that we should observe from the time of His atoning death until He comes again. This ordinance characterizes the whole period in which we live. It is a period of grace which will end with his coming in judgment. It is therefore a time in which we must decide whether we trust in the crucified savior or not. We are to show his death until he comes. In our text Jesus is confronting the people with this same decision. He has talked about being ready for his coming again. He has said that he came to cast fire on the earth which definitely requires a decision and now he rebukes his own generation for not being aware of the decisiveness of their time. Thus in our text he sets before us two vital truths: significant discernment, and saving decision.

I Significant Discernment

As we read in verses 54-56 the people to whom Jesus spoke were experts at the signs of nature, He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? When I look up at the clouds, they all look the same to me, but my Father-in-Law was a farmer from upstate New York. When he looked up he could tell exactly what the clouds signified. in Israel when the clouds gathered in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea they saw rain was coming. When the south wind blew off the desert they knew hot weather was on its way, but they were spiritually blind. They did not see the decisiveness of Jesus’ advent, the coming of Messiah. From the beginning God had promised a savior. In Genesis 3:15 we read that the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head. From the beginning it had been made clear that they could not be saved unless someone made of woman, made under the law would come and redeem them from their sins. They had been told by Isaiah that they needed a divine visitation as in Isaiah 7:14, Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called Immanuel or God with us. The end of all things was near. if Jesus was the true messiah then the the last days of which the prophets spoke had come. listen to what Micah says about this time, In the last days the mountain of the lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains…. many nations will come and say come let us go up to the mountain of the lord…. he will teach us his ways. These were days of hope because the long awaited Messiah, the God man was here. In chapter 10:23 Jesus says to his disciples, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. for i tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. Dearly beloved the point here is that the most obvious interpretation is being ignored. Even John the Baptist says are you the one we waited for or should we look for another and Jesus says, in essence, give me a break, the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk and the dead are raised. Am I the one? Of course I am the one and only savior, but why was it ignored?

II Saving Decision

We read in verses 57-59, Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. These people needed to be reconciled to God and in a hurry, but they refused to make a decision to follow Him. Jesus told certain parables which should trouble our minds. In these He calls people to follow Him and they have many excuses. I’ve bought a field, I’m proving my newly acquired oxen, I’ve married a wife, I must bury my father. In every instance Jesus says the kingdom is more important. It has to do with our eternal destiny. This is exactly the point. You need to make a decision about what is most important, and being reconciled to God is the most important. The issue here is whether you will follow Jesus! To make it as clear-cut as possible, your life in the world is on trial. Many have tried to say that the way Jesus views salvation is different from the way Paul views it. Paul views it as a judicial process taking place in a courtroom but they say that Jesus does not. Here we dash that myth of unbelief to pieces. Jesus and Paul are one on this subject. We have several officers of the court named in our text. The adversary or accuser, the magistrate who is the prosecutor, the judge who makes the final disposition, and the officer of the court, the bailiff, who applies the sentence which has been designated by the judge. Can you to hazard a guess as to who these people are? God the Father is the accuser, and the prosecutor and the judge and the bailiff, and there is one officer of the court omitted. Who might that be? The defense attorney! That’s who! And though we have a perfect accuser, a perfect prosecutor, a perfect judge and a perfect bailiff we also have a perfect defense attorney, and advocate. This is what the apostle John says in I John 2:1 and 2 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. All we need is a perfect advocate, and we have him in Jesus. If you watch any TV you see a multitude of ads from attorneys inviting you to trust them. Maybe and maybe not. But my dear friends, the one attorney we must trust in is Jesus alone who was made sin so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. This is the reason that the Lord’s table has been instituted, to remind us that we have a perfect Advocate with the Father. If you do not trust in Him you have no hope at all.

Conclusion

Notice what our Lord says. If you get put in prison for debt you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. The obvious implication of this is that you cannot pay if you cannot produce. It’s a dead end. You will never get out. You must trust someone else to pay your debt. The decision you must make has to do with who will pay your debt. Jesus offers to do it now. Participation in the Lord’s table is exactly this, nothing more, and nothing less, than my acknowledgment that Jesus has paid my debt. God has forgiven and I am free.